Leah Brown and her partner Darren are feeling the pressure to buy a house after a significant rent hike.Analysts say incentives are better spent on affordable housingThey are searching in Darwin, where rental vacancy rates are among the tightest in the country – their rent has jumped by $150 a week.
The Territory Home Owner Discount is available to anyone buying a home worth up to $650,000 who hasn't owned in the NT during the previous two years. "Come 30th of June, if they don't secure a property, their pre-approvals are probably not going to allow them to borrow up to $650,000, so they're going to have to go back to their broker and reassess their situation," Ms Smithett said.
"We've seen a significant heating up of the market and so we need to do what we can now to make sure there are more units and houses available," Mr Gunner said. Professor Nicole Gurran suggests re-directing first-home owner incentives to affordable housing supply.
Because demand for houses is highly cross-elastic with demand for rental accommodation, reducing prices in the housing market (while keeping supply fixed) will just shift the demand curve to right, returning prices to the same equilibrium level. High school economics stuff.